mcqueen625

Boy, did you ever get that right when you said the Liberals will spend for 10-20 years, because that is the one thing they are really good at spending OURmoney. The part that upsets me is that they have a bad habit of steering that money in Liberal friendly pockets. The last thing Canada needs is an incompetent like Dion, God would this country ever be in trouble. The corruption was bad under the Cretin, and even worse under Mr. Dithers, I can't imagine I would want to ever live in a country led by another of the Chretien team of incompetents. Just remember for all of Dion's blabbering about the environment, he was Environment Minister when Kyoto was mistakenly sign and it was under his watch that allowed the emissions to grow by more than 30% since it's signing. And you want to make him what, Prime Minister?? You have got to be kidding, right? I hope the Liberals are stupid enough to defeat the government so we can elect a majority Conservative government to allow Harper to make the changes that need to be made in this country.

Now there is an utterly naive comment if I ever heard one. The argument before over China's human rights abuses, it was said by the corporate sector that we should develop trade with them and we will influence how they treat their own people, by them observing how we treat our people. After all of this time the only thing they have learned is that they can have their cake and eat it too. They can continue to abuse and threaten not only their own people but those in Tibet, as well as those in Taiwan, while being allowed to pollute the environment at will. The only thing that will teach this ruthless regime is to stop all trade with them, until they step into line, and the World should boycott the Olympics as a indication that we do not accept the way they treat either their people or the environment.

For starters if a Canadian makes the choice to break the law while in a foreign country, they should not look to the Canadian government and the taxpayers of this country to bail them out of whatever they have gotten themselves into. As for the death penalty, I don't agree with it personally, BUT I feel that when Canada did away with the death penalty it should have been replaced with a sentence of natural life in prison. Anyone who commits this type of crime, the only way they should get out of prison, is in a prone position, inside a pine box. With the appointment of bleeding-hearts to the judiciary, our justice system has become nothing but a joke. Just this week I heard on the radio where a pedophile with multiple convictions, and who has refused treatment while in prison, was denied parole because of the refusals, and now his time is up and they have to set him free even though the experts are predicting that it is a 100% certainty that he will re-offend. Something is terribly wrong when we have a justice system that is supposed to protect the public, and we allow someone to go free that we know will harm more children. We also have the situation whereby Canadians who are convicted of crimes in other countries, and the first thing they do is apply to serve their sentence in a Canadian prison, because they know that our justice system is far too lenient and will oftentimes allow them back on our streets long before their sentence is complete. We need to change our justice system, build more prisons, and keep dangerous offenders, including pedophiles, behind bars until they die.

The problem is not the police, it is the bleeding-heart appointed and unaccountable judiciary that have been put in place primarily by the Liberals from amongst the Liberal faithful, and these appointees have been using a flawed document commonly referred to as the Charter to justify all kinds of silly decisions. These appointees seem to have no trouble making law, and if they had any common sense they would be throwing out large portions of this flawed document as making absolutely no sense in the real world. Maybe Trudeau was smoking too many of those funny cigarettes when he dreamed up this flawed document that has taken justice and common sense out of our justice system? Any document that confers more rights to the criminal element than it does to either law enforcement of the victims of crime is a flawed document, and this Charter as it was written and interpreted does just that. Since the judiciary seems so fond of making law without any accountability to anyone. Maybe it is time that our justices are elected to office for specific terms, and with term limits, at least it would make them conscious of how those decision take the justice out of our justice system and make it into what it has become, a joke, for most. The only people who do not seem to see no flaws in this Charter are the Liberals, the NDP and of course lawyers and the appointed judges right across this country. Could it be that all of these entities need a dose of common sense?

The reality is that the in-fighting and petty politics by the Democrats, especially by the Obama side against Clinton is likely causing many Americans to look at voting for another Republican administration. Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton whether they want to admit it or not are a dream-team as running-mates in the November Presidential vote, but because Obama is so full of himself he is lessening his chances of winning an election. What has to be remembered here is that regardless of how many Primaries he wins over how many Clnton wins is that every person who is voting for either a already members of the Democratic Party and are therefore partisan. To win the election they need to convince the American people that the Republicans need to be replaced, and so far all that is happening is this silly in-fighting. It shows just how naive Obama is by dismissing out of hand the possibility of having Clinton as a running mate. Instead he should be looking at ways to forge a relationship with Hillary, otherwise they both just might wind up as losers in the Big Game. The actions of Obama are to me are not only signs of his immaturity and inexperience, but are also troubling signs of something even worse, and that is narcissism. He has become so full of himself that he can't see past his own hype. He needs to realize that this is not all about him, it is about the Democrats winning in a General Election against the Republicans. I say Narcissism, because Obama is acting as if this whole contest is about him specifically, that the world turns on only him and the decisions he makes. "Narcissism," is is defined as being quite common during adolescence but if it continues into adulthood it then becomes a mental illness. Obama needs to take a reality pill and grow up, look at what is best for the Democratic Party and less about scoring a defeat against Clinton. Both have good ideas an on most of the main issues they seems to be on the same page politically, so the wise thing would be to set aside their differences and think about joining forces to take the Presidency away from the Republicans. The last thing the U.S. needs is another term with a Republican President, because we already know from the experiences of the Bush's, that the Republicans stand for continuing the war. Both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have turned into another Vietman, where their opposition does not where uniforms but instead uses guerrilla warfare, and they fight from within the civilian population, and that makes it impossible to determine who exactly the enemy is.

"The people who say they can't afford to save anything are the ones who don't want to. When I worked in the financial industry I got sick of dealing with people who would refuse to put money away, even though I could show them how to restructure their debt, and expenses to free up money to invest without impacting their lifestyle." It's quite obvious from your condescending comments that you haven't had to visit a food bank or soup kitchen in the last little while. I do deal with these poor unfortunate people on a daily basis, and when these people say we have no money, they actually mean they have no money. Everything around us is going up in price as we speak, but unfortunately according to an article I read the only people who's income is keeping up are the upper management levels in the company, with annual increases in their wages of 14% and beyond, while those of us who are left, receive less than 4%, and that's only if they receive any raise at all. The cost of even food is going up at a level far beyond 4%, and for the unfortunates, in order for them to pay for housing, utilities, heat and phone, the only place they are able to make any deductions is on what they spend on food, everything else they either pay what the bill is or not receive the service or be able to keep a roof over their heads. Consequently, many wind up relying on food banks or soup kitchens to supplement what they are not able to provide for themselves. More and more of our clients actually work, but minimum wage, and part-time jobs only provides so much before these people are forced to ask for help. Many employers have built their businesses around part-time employees so they won't be expected to provide benefits, and retail is the worst offender of all. Every time the minimum wage goes up the owners cut back on service and raise prices, and the cost of everything goes up, to more than claw back any raise the employees have received, it is almost like magic, watching it happening while listening to the owners cry hard times.

The vast majority of Canadians do not contribute to RRSP's, and during a recent poll conducted by Yahoo.ca the question asked was; "Why do most Canadians not contribute to RRSP's?" The answer given by 75% of the respondents should be no surprise to anyone, it was; "They cannot afford to." Now we have the feds coming up with another plan to get Canadians to save their money, but guess what, if Canadians can't afford to contribute to RRSP's. where does the government think they are going to come up with money to set aside in a savings account, registered or otherwise? Most Canadians are in the situation where after paying for a roof over their heads, the ever increasing utility bills, transportation costs going through the roof, etc., etc., there is very little money left to even put decent food on the table, let alone thinking about the impossibility of contributing to an RRSP, or to a registered savings account. This is just another way to allow the affluent, who do not have to worry about how they are going to put enough food on their tables, to salt away even more tax-free money. Could it be that this is a the result of lobbying efforts from the chartered banks to further build their assets, and therefore be able to reward their shareholders with higher dividends? Let's not forget those poor underpaid bank CEO's who clamor for their yearly bonuses, bonuses I might add are thousands of times greater than most Canadians make working 40 + hours a week.

Geoffery: "Diminishing returns, not monetary policy. Both Brazil and China actively fight inflation." What does that mean, when the reality is that inflation really has no affect on teh affluent, because they in many cases get to write-off their expenses, while most Canadians are not afforded that option, and are taxed on our incomes with virtually no deductions beyond the personal exemption? Of course China at least fight inflation, it's called communism where all people work for the state for low or starvation wages, using children in many cases. My family has decided since the junk coming into North America from China is either tainted or downright dangerous, that we will check the labels, and if it is made in China, it stays on the store shelves.

It is quite obvious from your comments that you have not bothered to visit the hundreds of food banks and soup kitchens across Canada lately to observe the many seniors and working poor who are forced to use these agencies so they don't wind up starving to death. Your contention that everyone should pay taxes is naive at best , and fais to realize that many people already have to make a choice of paying the power bill, buying nedded medications or puuting food on teh tabel. No just socienty should allow that to happen. The federal government made a commitment about 20 years ago to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000, yet the number of people living in poverty has increased significantly since that time. The only people who seem insulated from the effects of this are the affluent who care only about themselves. Maybe we should start firing some of these useless overpaid executives, and put the money they are paid into the pay envelopes of the people within those company's who actually do the work. Now as far as the CBC is concerned, I agree with you, and since they want the benefits of selling commercial airtime, they should be made to either go commercial-free similar to PBS, and operate solely with subscriber donations, and they should be totally cut off from taxpayer's money.

They are repealing it for a couple of reasons, the least of which is that the registry has never taken guns away from the very people who use them for illegal purposes, the criminal element. Now why is that? It is because DUH, criminals don't register their guns. Secondly, it was an hugely expensive to establish and maintain, as well as the fact that many legitimate owners never bothered to even register their guns, and why should they. I believe that the Liberal's next step would have been confiscation without compensation just as Australia did after they introduced a registry. The problem today in Australia is that home invasions while people are at home have gone through the roof, because they know they can go in armed to the teeth and nobody can do a thing about it. Many more violent deaths are caused by means other than guns, how about knives, are we next going to set up a registry for people to register their carving, chef, and steak knives? Sound ridiculous? No more ridiculous than expecting criminals to register their firearms. In this country we already have far too much government and as long as the size of the government bureaucracy keeps growing, they will need ever growing amounts of taxes to support it. I want lower taxes, so that I can decide for myself how I want to spend the money I earn, and not have some bureaucrat decide that for me.

Yeah well, thanks for the warning, so I can make sure I don't watch The Hour. Actually I never watch inferior Canadian programming anyway, but I especially will make sure not to watch the Cretin. He was apoor excuse for a Prime Minister, and if we really had a democratic system where the people actaully got to vote for the PM or Premier in an At-Large scenario, Chretien would never have become PM in the first place. With the parties picking who their leader will be is not democratic, because only the PEOPLE in the leader's home riding get to vote.

Responsibility for what? It is the extremist Islamists who want us to change to suit them, so where is their responsibility? It seems to me that radical Islamists want what they want whether we want it or not. Their stated goal is the to convert the world to Islam by force, if necessary. It is not a new thing for these people to threaten death to anyone who does not believe as they do. If we are not willing to stand up for what we believe in then we deserve whatever happens. Presently the only way to stand up to these extremists is to take the fight to them because they have already brought the fight to not only North America but to Europe as well.

Why just pick on Harper? If I remember correctly was it not Jean Chretien who assaulted a man during a peaceful protest? And was it not during his watch when we all got to watch Jean's stormtroopers pepper spraying peaceful demonstrators. Even the public inquiry after the fact determined that the RCMP used excessive force. What free democratic are we talking about here, because it certainly isn't Canada. We in Canada have a form of government whereby the people really have no say in anything because the PM is able to be a virtual dictator. Naive people say, if we don't like the way government is acting we can vote them out come next election, and my question is what difference does it make since whoever gets in power will act exactly the same. The Liberals and the NDP want a socialist state where government is all things to all people. To have that happen government requires bigger and bigger government to administer all of the social programs. Canadians have become slaves to "Big Government." Even if we are able to change government, how do we get rid of the people who actually run the government operations, namely senior bureaucrats. They will still be there regardless of who forms the government and it's become very obvious that they have their own agenda and it has virtually nothing to do with what Canadians want or don't want. Their whole mission in life is to insure their own survival, and to continue on with their agenda of how they think Canada should look like.

That is a very good question and one I have written to the Finance Minister about. I feel that instead of nickel and dimming seniors and those on CPP Disability they could instead raise the personal exemptions for all to a least the poverty level, and make up part of this difference by taxing winnings from lotteries, casinos, and the race track, just as they do south of the border. Why should anyone be able to walk away tax free with $37Million when this same government is chasing seniors if they happen to owe $.05. Collecting the tax would be quite easy, because it gets collected right off the top, and is sent to the tax man with your Social Security # attached to it. In Canada we could quite easily do the same thing by taxing any winning on the spot. If people choose to gamble they take a chance of losing their shirts, so why not tax any winnings, and not be able to write off loses. I'm quite sure in the U.S. the ordinary Joe off the street cannot write off loses at the neighbourhood casino, although when they win they must pay the tax-man. Taxing any winnings in Canada particulalrly wins from VLT's would certainly take away the incentive for people to spend their rent into these horrible machines, because then even if they win, they lose. Government won't do that because they are making too much money off the fools who waste their hard earned money by playing the government's voluntary tax on those who are too dumb to realize that the odds of them winning any significant amount are slim to none. These people are like the proverbial BINGO Players who brag about how much they win, but they never tell you how much they have spent on the nights they won nothing.

Shop around? How is that possible when these multinational corporation are able to charge whatever they want for goods even though the prices being charged in no way represents the cheap labour costs they are able to obtain by having the products manufactured in sweat-shop in China and other 3rd world countries? Unless and until our federal government imposes profit restrictions on these goods, we will continue to be disadvantaged at the check-out counter. I don't see any government imposing restrictions on these multinational corpoarte bums. Their only concern is maximizing profits for their shareholders. Until both Canadians and Americans stop buying this third-world trash, and instead purchase only good manufactured in North America we will be stuck with these inflated prices for inferior products.

I didn't watch the video, nor do I want to. This whole thing, (Israeli/Palestinian) is about one not wanting the other to exist, and it is also about whether a country has the right to defend itself from constant attack by terrorist elements, and I contend that Israel is just defending themselves on several terrorist fronts, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, Iran and Syria, and they have every right to defend themselves from attack. When civilians wind up being killed there is a big hue and cry from the peaceniks who blame Israel for those deaths, when in fact the blame should go to the coward radical Islamists. These cowards hide amongst the civilian population and fire rocket propelled grenades, and missiles into Israel targeting the civilians. In the eyes of these cowards there are no innocent Israelis, and therefore every Israeli is a legitimate target. A prime example of this cowardice was displayed in the Mosque just a few days ago, when the lead Imam tried to sneak of of that mosque dressed up like a woman. Even his own people should have been questioning his motives with this pathetic display of cowardice. When the Pakistani government forces were about to end the standoff, he attempted to sneak out and leave both his followers behind, as well and hundreds of women and children. What a cowardly piece of S--t! Anyone who still follows this piece of human garbage should question their own sanity. I do not condone violence by anyone, but if attacked, as Israel has been, they have every right to use whatever force is necessary to protect themselves, and to attack wherever their enemy is presently hiding. If the civilian population is so concerned for their safety, maybe they had better start standing up for themselves and throwing the terrorists out of civilian areas and into the open. To do otherwise implies that they condone what the terrorists are doing, including using them as human shields.

I have no problem with the refitting of the frigates, but what I do have a problem with is the fact that Halifax Shipyards is going to get the contract to do the work. The design for all of the frigates were developed by the most modern ship yard in Canada, Saint John Shipbuilding, in Saint John, NB, and half were constructed at this facility and the other half were constructed in Quebec with supervision from Saint John Shipbuilding using those same plans. Saint John Shipbuilding became the most modern ship yard with taxpayer's dollars. The Irvings set about buying up basically all shipyards in Atlantic Canada, including Halifax Shipyards and then set in place a plan to close Saint John Shipbuilding putting hundrends of men out of work. After those ships were built they lobbied the federal government for funding to close and mothball Saint John Shipbuilding, and were subsequently given $55 Million to close this facility, and any work the Irving's obtained was switched to Halifax Shipyards. Some of those who worked for Saint John Shipbuilding were offered part-time jobs in Halifax, I say part-time because the Irvings would call them in to do a specific job and when that specific job was completed they were laid off to sit in a rooming house and wait for another call for part-time work. Now we find out that the feds are again looking out for their rich friends by making sure the Irving's prosper, only now in Halifax instead of Saint John. I would have preferred to see that work go to the shipyard in Quebec that was involved in the building of these frigates. I hate to see workers being taken advantage of and then thrown aside because of one family's dislike for working in a union environment.

APThis was the lead in to an article which appeared in the Associated Press. Isn't it a bit hypocritical of Dion to spout this type of condemnation especially since he was a member of successive Liberal governments who did exactly nothing to further the human rights of First Nations peoples in Canada while they were in office? While the Liberals were in office I seem to remember the Canadian government being taken to task by the corrupt U.N. for our government's treatment of these very peoples, yet they did absolutely nothing about it. That's strike three against this wanabe leader, the first being the fact that he doesn't think it important to be Canadian first, in order to be PM, while most Canadians feel it is a must. The second is his stance on the environment and Kyoto, since he WAS the Environment Minister under Jean Chretien when this flawed document was signed by the Liberals, and then allowed emission levels to rise more than 30% after this document was signed, to the point that is is impossible to meet those lofty goals without consumers facing price shock, and the loss of many jobs. He now proposes to take the Canadian government to task for not signing a declaration with the U.N. to protect First Nations People's human rights. This man has absolutely no clue that he is being hypocrital in his views, as if Canadians will have forgotten his past record, on many of the issues he is now harping about. Granted, I see no reason for not signing such a document, but the problem should have been fixed way back when the U.N. first brought up the issue regarding Canada's treatment of indigenous peoples. If the Liberal are going to take the Conservatives to task for something it should at least be on issues that the Liberals have some credibility and have not already screwed up before they left office. To do otherwise shows graphically how little credibility the Liberals actually have. Has anyone forgotten Sponsorship, Supply and Services, Public Works, and the many other scandals that took place under the Liberals. They had no credibility then, and the truth is they have not changed. The thing they are most upset with Canadians about is that we finally showed them where the door was, and the really sad part is their perception that they did nothing wrong by misappropriating taxpayer's money.

A great idea, but first we need to reestablish wide spread employer sponsored healthcare insurance, and for government to step on the medical insurance industry. and not allow them to screen out anyone who has a pre-existing condition. Most insurance companies before Medicare used to insure everyone in a family, but now they have taken to scrutenizing the applicants and their families for pre-existing condition and then denying them healthcare coverage. Coverage should be for everyone, not just the healthy. It's certainly not a case of the insurance industry being on the verge of bankruptcy, in fact the continue to report record profits each and every year. In many cases even when an insured person becomes ill in the case of Disability Insurance, the insurance industry first denies the claims even against medical evidence, and when that doesn't work they explore ways to disqualify the claimant from benefits. That is a case of politicians climbing into bed with the insurance executives, and the people wind up getting anything but a good nights sleep.

Not relevant. Its the local tribes people that know the land and will fight indefinitely as their fathers and grandfathers did before them against the British and the Russians. Those were far more formidable foes than the ATV bound canucks. So, 6 years later and what has really changed? Actually, we were a bunch of jew haters who gladly did business with nazis at the time of WWII. This of course was not too long after we committed our own genocide against the natives. Nevertheless, AQ is little more than a murderous criminal organization, one that feeds off of nato and american expansion. You have no idea how stupid and corrupt the 'west' really is. Ahh yes, the 'left' is the source of all your problems. Do yourself a favor and pick up a history book or two. Im thinking ignorance is maybe closer to the source of your actual problems. Andrew If you think so highly of radical Islam maybe you should move away from comfortable Canada and go live in a place like Iran where your thoughts and deeds are dictated by the local moron who runs the country. I sure hope you don't have a wife or daughters because I don't think they will appreciate being treated like a piece of property who are not allowed to be educated, and will do exactly as they are told, or else.

From who? Harper is constrained by his own law about when he can call an election. The Opposition might decide to go but why would the BQ pass up the sweet deals it gets in every budget? Harper is not seen by Canadians as being the person to vote in for a majority. *Every* single poll from the election to today has repeated that mantra. The last several week of Parliament saw the Opposition setting the agenda. Harper is going to have to come up with a plan that doesn't go south like his last budget. I would certainly rather have Harper than Dion or Layton. At least he doesn't want already overtaxed Canadians to pay for even more useless social programs. I have had quite enough of government wanting to play "Big Brother" from birth to death. What little money I have left after I pay more than my share of taxes, I want to keep, and decide for myself where to spend this money. I know my priorities are not that of those who want government to be all things to all people.

It is great to see people who are not living under the constant barage of rockets to so lightly dismiss the impact these rocket attacks are having on the people of Israel. What Israel should have done from day 1 after Hamas was sworn into office and the first rocket landed was to consider these rocket attacks as an act of war by a neighbouring country and declare all out war on the Palestinian people. If the Palestinians can declare that there are no innocent Israelis then the same applies for the Palestians, and they can't after firing the missles cry about their civilians being killed when Israel defends herself. If the Palestians are stupid enough to elect a terrorist organization as their government then they have absolutely no room to cry when their civilians start dying, particularly when that faction continues to fire missles into Israel. This is a war and what part of an armed conflict do you not understand? People die in war and the Palestinians have no right to continue firing missles into Israel, putting Israeli lives at risk, and not to expect retaliation. Isreal has every right to defend their land and their people from hostile attacks, just as I would expect our government to retaliate if Canada were attacked. If the Palestians and terrorist lovers like yourself don't like the results of Israel defending themself then for heavens sake convince Hamas to stop instigating a war that they obviously are not capable of winning. If they want to martyr themselves then I think Isreal should oblige them.

The NDP is so different than either the Liberal or the Greens> All three parties want government to be all things to all people from birth to death. We wonder why our taxes are so high, all we have to do is look at the policies of these three parties to determine that they want bigger government to look after the vast array of social programs they all want to implement and have the taxpayers pay for. Thank you very much, but I would rather choose for myself where I want my money spent, and it certainly isn't on national day-care, pharmacare or one of the many other programs these socialist parties love to dream up to spend my money on.

Per Capita we have far more government than does the United States, and it is far too much government for the population of Canada. No wonder our taxes are so high, every time a crisis in anything is perceived in government the Canadian way of dealing with it seems to be by creating another bureaucracy to throw at it. I for one am sick and tires of paying useless bureaucrats who spend most of their time dreaming up ways in whcih to justify their very existance. We need less government, not more, and equal representation from each jurisdiction would mean that no one area has more influence than another, the same should apply to the Senate, and the Supreme Court, and both the Senate and the Judiciary should be elected to specific terms to make them accountable to someone besides themselves..

What are you talking about? The Free Trade agreements have virtually decimated our manufacturing industry and converted us into a service sector economy, where traditionally most of the jobs are minimum wage. Free trade was on the multinational corporattion's wish list so that they can now export the jobs to third world countries and ship finished products back into Canada duty free. The only ones who have benefited by free-trade are the multinational corporations and their shareholders. Nothing in those agreements was meant to benefit ordinary Canadians.